Word: debi
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...time is prime for Debi Thomas, America's current sweetheart, and Katarina Witt, East Germany's coquettish "workers' hero." -- On tape: Italy's Alberto ("la Bomba") Tomba will give Zurbriggen a run for his money in the giant slalom...
Unless the unexpected happens, Debi Thomas will become the first black athlete to win a medal in the Winter Games. Records are not immaculately kept on the point, but apparently it was 1980 before U.S. Bobsledders Willie Davenport and Jeff Gadley, along with their Canadian counterpart Bob Wilson, broke the color line. Several more black athletes will compete in Calgary, including Canadian Hockey Player Claude Vilgrain. If part of the problem is lack of black involvement in winter sports, that is changing too. E. Rory Flack, 18, is the most prominent of a growing number of black athletes following Thomas...
...first of three gold medals that launched her multimillion-dollar movie career. In at least two respects, the blond Norwegian starlet of Sun Valley Serenade is still the ideal. East Germany's Katarina Witt, reigning world and Olympic champion, is ( studying to be an actress. And U.S. Challenger Debi Thomas, Witt's primary competition in Calgary, likes the sound of multimillions...
...fact, Thomas had a very strong role model in Janice, her mother. Most of the skaters have strong mothers, and most of the mothers have mink coats. "But my mother's not a rink mom," says Debi. "She works." She's a programmer-analyst in California's Silicon Valley, divorced from Debi's father since 1974. "A coach once advised Mom to rent a fur coat just for the nationals, but I did all right that year without the fur coat." Janice Thomas laughs and says, "They tell you it's to attract sponsorship money, as well as to look...
...month after her nationals victory, early in 1986, Thomas flew off to Geneva for a summit with the Brooke Shields of Sarajevo, the G.D.R's great Witt (pronounced Vitt). And, for the first time since the Olympics, Witt had to settle for second. Still only 18, Debi was world champion, and the single word she had used to sum herself up on Stanford's application forms suddenly seemed an understatement: "Invincible." Within a year, that would change. Tasting some of Chin's medicine, on two throbbing Achilles tendons, Thomas lost the '87 nationals to Jill Trenary. Then...